Memories of Memorabilia

Or A Misspent Youth & Misspent Pocket Money!

Collecting is a kind of malady and is to one man an understandable compulsion, and to another just 'hoarding'! I guess it all starts in childhood with your parents giving you something to keep you quiet. In my case it was probably the scrap book and glue which followed on from the pencil and paper, or crayons and colouring books. The pencil made me an artist, the scrapbook turned me into a collector. It is as simple as that. And today I am still the artist and the collector (just last week a friend accused me of being a hoarder), though not the collector I once was. I have collected many things!

Odeon Cinema, St Thomas Street, Weymouth c1970:
 where a couple of years earlier the doorman gave me a huge
pile of Kinomatograph Weekly from the late 50s and early sixties
featuring classic Hammer news and trade campaigns.



Hooked on Horror:
Myself & a growing horror film collection c.1969:
notice the yellow cover Carlos Clarens and the two issues of Supernatural Horror Filming
created by Tim Stout (1946-2011) it apparently had its launch party in the
basement of the Soho coffee bar, Le Macabre.



Looking back is I know, pure nostalgia. A nostalgia for times past, yes, but also for those things you gave up, gave away, or sometimes simply mislaid. Of course, for the collector there is always a chance one may be offered the opportunity to reclaim something, if the need is felt and the time is right! Old collectors never say die! I am 60 next birthday and look what I found in Weymouth a few weeks ago, in the very street where I spent my paper-round money on exactly this book and other titles 43 years ago:



Arrow Books 1969 edition of Stoker's
'Lair of the White Worm'

My first collected horror film memorabilia, if it didn’t come from the box-office attendant or the doorman of my local Odeon, most certainly came from somewhere in London with the slightly mysterious and far too simple address: The Vault of Horror, London WC1. How I discovered such a source of collectable goodies I no longer recall. But it was to this address I would send my postal order cheques in order to purchase such (at the time) prized items as film 'lobby' stills from The Revenge of Frankenstein, posters from Quatermass II and The Monster That Challenged The World, or my cherished copy of Carlos Clarens' An Illustrated History of the Horror Film (pub.1968). The latter still sits upon my bookshelf.

Amazingly, when you think of it now, Vault of Horror would send a batch of colour film stills from which you could choose those you wished to purchase, trusting you to send the others back!



All these years later I discover the Vault of Horror has its place in the history of what was then surely a vanguard of inspired fantasy fans, collectors, writers, editors, and ultra talented comic artists, many of whom were born around the same year as myself. The list is long and distinguished, and includes the likes of Derek ’Dez’ Skinn (b. Feb 1951), Brian Bolland (b.March 1951), David Pirie (b. 1953), and Alan Moore (b. Nov 1953).  
From such little acorns do Forbidden Planets grow. Yes, The Vault of Horror was for a short lifespan the mail order business of one Derek ‘Bram’ Stokes who, with money loaned to him by his mother, created London’s original Sci-fi bookstore ‘Dark They Were & Golden Eyed’. This later morphed into the fantasy retail empire Forbidden Planet!

Dark They Were & Golden Eyed (established in 1969) had three consecutive locations, the first In a maze of back streets behind the Strand and Charing Cross, the second in Berwick Street at the heart of Soho, and the third and larger location in a cut-through between Wardour Street and Dean Street.

I recall searching for Dark They Were & Golden Eyed (The shop's name was taken from a short story by Ray Bradbury) on a first independent trip to London and on that occasion I recall drinking a coca cola in a Soho coffee bar painted out as a horror crypt, Le Macabre. On the Juke box at the rear of the bar you could select Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre. Apparently the bar is fondly remembered. It dated back to the early 1950s when Soho became the centre of the beatnik culture in London. Coffee bars such as Le Macabre with its coffin-shaped tables, fostered beat poetry, jive dance and political debate. Around the corner at the '2 i's' Cliff Richard, Adam Faith, Manfred Mann and others were discovered.



A touch of old Soho: Le Macabre coffee house



Derek 'Bram' Stokes had previously ran the horror film fanzine Gothique, a little home-made magazine which I remember sending for from Weymouth. Diane Lister (later Diane Stokes) joined him at Dark They Were & Golden Eyed in 1969 and the shop was managed by fantasy author Stan Nicholls, who had worked with Stokes on Gothique. Nick Landau, founder of Forbidden Planet and Titan Entertainment Group, could apparently be found making use of the shop's hand-cranked duplicator. Of such stuff legends are born! 



Derek 'Bram' Stokes & Diane Lister



Eventually establishing itself after the demise of Dark They Were & Golden Eyed, Forbidden Planet began life in 1978 as a small store in Denmark Street off Charing Cross Road, in the shadow of Centre Point. As the scope of the store expanded beyond comics to embrace film and television, a second store was opened just around the corner on St Giles High Street selling second hand and collectors items. The store's eventual success led to overcrowding, necessitating a move to much larger premises on New Oxford Street.



Forbidden Planet: the original store


In this old photograph of the original Forbidden Planet (taken by Spike McFang) you can see in the window a Judge Dredd poster by Brian Bolland. UK comics wizard Bolland designed numerous "People like us shop at... FORBIDDEN PLANET" adverts for the shop and his artwork also featured on the shops plastic bags, as well on T-Shirts and covers for their SF, comic and TV & film catalogues. (more on Brian Bolland later)

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